


Embers to Flames

by nothingbutbonfires



Category: Avengers (Comics), Marvel, Marvel (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Avengers believe in second chances, Clint is daddy hawk, Clint knows the best pizza in NYC, English is a difficult language, F/M, Gen, Pietro is dead and stays dead, Slow Burn, Vision is a cinnamon roll too beautiful for this world too pure, Vision's first days, Wanda and Vision are strangers in a strange land, Work In Progress, and takes Wanda under his wing, but she hates Tony Stark in every language, scarlet vision - Freeform, wanda is awkward
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-09
Updated: 2016-02-21
Packaged: 2018-05-05 19:50:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,191
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5388110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nothingbutbonfires/pseuds/nothingbutbonfires
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Let me not die while I am still alive."<br/>- the prayer of Hannah, 1 Samuel, Haftara</p><p> </p><p>Wanda takes the broken pieces of her life and puts herself back together.<br/></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Curious Feeling of Flying

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! Long-time reader, first-time writer.  
> Big appreciator of the MCU as well as the original Marvel comics, so my forthcoming canon will be a mix of the two.  
> 

Wanda concentrated all of her unprecedented rage and sadness into her hand, licked with a small red flames, and felt the metal heart—could she call it that? Was it even a heart? Could someone as genocidal as Ultron have a heart? more of a power source, perhaps—crumble into fine dust. On another day, in a more innocent time, under different circumstances where her brother could be here to witness this, she would have seen herself as the knight slaying the mighty dragon. She could be the hero of the story.

 

But that was not today. She knew Ultron had other forms of himself—less powerful drones, shells for his consciousness—around Sokovia, or even further away. But she had killed his most powerful form, so at least she had bought them all some time until his planned extinction of humanity.

 

She was so consumed in her rage and sorrow that when she felt a drone go for the core, she knew she was too late. Wanda’s shredded heart plummeted down to her stomach as she realized the drone was too far for her powers to reach. The Avengers gave her _one_ responsibility and she failed it. She failed them. She was ashamed to admit, her need for vengeance overwhelmed her feelings to protect citizens.

 

But with her last muster of energy, she mentally scanned the floating mass of land for any life forms. Thor was still above ground, running closer to the core, able to fly away in an instant. Stark was underneath the city. Everyone else was safe. Ah, so she only failed everyone below them, future victims to this giant rock. She felt the land fall towards the Earth, and thought to herself that one more time as a harbinger of death was probably the way she deserved to die.

 

Pietro would not have seen it that way, Wanda thought as she began to turn weightless like all the debris around her. “We can be the saviors of Sokovia,” he had told her, his hand on her shoulder.  “Isn’t that what we always wanted?” And even at the end of all things—that’s where she was now, right?—she had saved her fellow Sokovians. Destroyed their homeland, sure—ha! it is always too complicated—but she had saved so many citizens.

 

What a way to die.

 

 _I’ll see you soon, Pietro_ , she thought.

 

And then he appeared.

 

A shining Vision amid the enveloping, expanding devastation.

 

He immediately placed a hand on her back. Wanda whipped her head around, surprised at the touch and the sudden company in her moment before death. Vision looked into her eyes, as if asking permission to finish rescuing her. Wanda was startled that she was going to make it out of here alive. This was nature's way of telling her she deserves less than the poetic, martyr death she had anticipated moments before. She knew that there was some word to describe how Ultron’s and Stark’s creation was now her knight in shining armor, somewhere between irony and fate.  In the destruction of their surroundings and the chaos of her emotions, she had no time to form words, so she communicated the other way she knew how: she opened her mind to him.

 

And at the forefront of all of her thoughts was one word, one she did not expect to rise over the noise of her anguish: _help_.

 

His in return: _it will all be alright_.

 

Vision looked towards the heavens, wrapped his arm under her legs, and they ascended.

 

Wanda was used to Pietro sweeping her off her feet and speeding away together. She knew how to hold her body when this superhuman travel happened, so she would not experience whiplash or nausea.

 

This was far more terrifying. So she wrapped her arms around Vision’s neck and pressed her face firmly into his chest. Vision held her tight and radiated a warm, comforting heat, which felt like the only tranquility in the surrounding chaos. She burrowed into this heat while her mind ran wild. She felt her tears against his metallic yet soft body. There was dust and debris everywhere, and despite Wanda’s best efforts she could still feel Sokovia’s destruction in her lungs. She chose not to look down at the plummeting city beneath her. It was not what she wanted her last sight of Sokovia to be. She understood that her beautiful home was blown to bits. And some of those understandings do not need a visual as well, more images to haunt her sleep. She tried to tune out the sounds of her city exploding beneath her.

 

And then it was quiet.

 

She feels Vision lightly step on a surface of some sort. Her open connection to his mind has her see he took her to the helicarrier itself, not one of the boats full of citizens. He kneels and gently places her seat on the pavement. 

 

“Miss Maximoff, we are—” Vision is interrupted by the sound of firing above. Wanda can sense a few of Ultron’s drones left, and the friend of Stark’s shooting them out of the sky. Debris and shrapnel fell from the heavens. Vision immediately grabs his cape and holds it protectively over her.

 

 _Please just let them die_ , Wanda thinks. Too exhausted to do anything on the offensive about it, she musters a small hint of a red shield around her and Vision. She curls into a small ball under Vision’s protection. Metal bits of Ultron drones plummet to the ground and bounce off of her telekinetic barrier.

 

And then, all is still.

 

Wanda wishes she could pass out, or faint, like she can cause others with just the right prod into their mind. But her head is too full of _hurt_ anger _grief_ pain _loneliness_ anguish _torment_ loss _guilt_ sorrow.

 

So she sobs instead.


	2. The Collapse Between The Heart And The Synapse

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for waiting. MUCH longer chapter this time around. Cheers friends!

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A gentle voice breaks through the tumult of her cries.

 

“Miss Maximoff, are you hurt?”

 

Emotionally wrecked unlike anything she had ever felt possible to feel? Yes. Physically wounded? No. Wanda shook her head.

 

“I am sorry, and I know those words offer very little value in your grief,” Vision said. He paused and gently placed his hand on her back, perhaps hoping it would convey the comfort he wished for her that his words could not adequately express. Language could only evoke so much. Vision realized the true gap between what words convey and the full scope of human emotion.

 

But the gesture helped. Her cries softened. “Mr. Barton is returning to the helicarrier with your brother’s body, if that is any consolation.”

 

Her brother’s _body_. Wanda hated how it sounded, even from Vision’s soothing voice, describing her twin as an inanimate object instead of the arrogant, loyal, compassionate brother she knew. But, Wanda realized, that’s all of him that was left. Wanda peered up at Vision. She sniffled, and suddenly felt very shy. “Thank you for saving my life.”

 

“Of course. I would never leave a teammate behind.” He stood up and offered his hand out to her. “Shall we go inside? It is likely to be warmer in there, or at least have a blanket for your needs.” Vision knew firefighters and medics use blankets in times of shock, but that hardly seemed sufficient to lessen the extreme grief Wanda was exuding.

 

Wanda nodded and accepted his offer, grabbing his wrist as he pulled her up. She wiped away tears with her wrist glove and followed Vision inside.

 

“Where can I find Barton?” Wanda asked. She was fighting to keep her emotions in check. When her emotions ran wild, there were often negative consequences to anyone near her. Her powers were so tied up to her feelings; it felt like she was capable of any amount of chaos now.

 

Vision sank through the floor, which upset Wanda, even though she logically knew he was probably uncomfortable with the request to help her find her brother’s body. He had just saved her life, what did he owe her? And yet, still, she felt abandoned.

 

He rose up through the floor only a moment later. “He is two floors below, approaching the medical bay with many other civilians.”

 

Oh. Vision had gone and looked for him.

 

“Thank you,” Wanda replied unsteadily. She took the stairs immediately to their left, and Vision followed. She was not sure why he followed her into this incredibly upsetting situation. But it felt oddly comforting to have him as her shadow. She ran rapidly down the stairs, light-footed, taking several stairs at a time. Her hands glided along the metal handrails, leaving a trail of red sparks and slightly melted steel in her wake.

 

Reaching the bottom floor, she swung the door open with a slight movement of her wrists. She felt Vision’s presence leave, as if something else had taken precedence. So much for her shadow.

 

The large medical bay was densely packed with people and Sokovian chatter. Some were lying in stretchers, others were sitting in chairs, but many injured were still standing, as there were not enough beds to go around. But her eyes found Barton, carrying her brother and placing him on a gurney. Wanda parted the other civilians between her and Barton like the Red Sea. The small sparks emitting from her hands suggested that they were not necessarily moving on their own. A brief moment later, she reaches her brother. And she weeps into his chest.

 

It was not her first encounter with a dead body. Far from it. Death followed Wanda Maximoff. The shellings in her apartment building, the constant civil unrest in Sokovia, and the ruthless government crushing any rebellions were only the start of her relationship with Death. Then there was inside Hydra, where every other participant in Strucker’s experiments beyond her and Pietro died. The two of them made an effort to not get to know other participants in the experiments, on Strucker’s warning that they might not survive. Sure enough, there were so many screams of pain, bodies leaving in long black plastic bags, pallid arms falling limp from under a white sheet, that death continued to be a familiar presence to Wanda and Pietro.

 

And yet.

 

The touch was the foreign aspect. Pietro’s chest didn’t feel as soft. She had laid her head on it before—his protective embrace included pressing her cheek along his chest, wrapping her up completely. It was still muscle, but there was something firmer about it that felt awful. He felt cold and clammy, two words Wanda would never have described him. Even during their time at Hydra, in the worse parts of the experimentation when she would wonder if the edge of death felt this hollow and cold, Pietro was always burning, blazing with a kind of heat too intense to store, that could only be released with bursts of speed, faster and faster.

 

She held his hand, and when his fingers did not mingle through hers, she whispered in Sokovian, “You told me you weren’t going to leave me here.” And she muffled her cries into his body. His blood stained her cheek and smeared in her hair.

 

Wanda did not understand how there can be such a huge void in her life now while her emotions are feeling out of control. How can she simultaneously feel _nothing_ , and _everything_? She can feel her control of her powers slipping, and she knows she needs to get out of this crowded room now. Wanda feels the stares of everyone around her and their emotions, their worry and fear and sympathy, and it makes her feel tense and uncomfortable. She rises and immediately runs out another door, opened by her telekinesis without a second thought.

 

Tears continue to stream down her face as she looks for somewhere to retreat. She runs down the hallway and goes in the first room she senses no people inside. The door slams behind her. Wanda collapses on her knees and cries. Will she ever run out of tears for her dead twin? Unlikely. Pietro deserves rivers of tears.

 

Thin red flames wrap around her fists and scatter around the room. Wanda feels herself losing control. Her grasp on her new enhanced abilities was always anchored by Pietro’s presence. With his death, she feels on the verge of losing her mind to the frenzied chaos that is her powers. She looks at her hands, covered in Pietro’s blood and enveloped in the soft crimson fire.

 

And she finally feels like that codename Hydra gave her: The Scarlet Witch.

 

The energy and disorder is building up inside of her, and Wanda knows if she truly loses her grip, she could blow a hole in this helicarrier and doom everyone to a fate they all just nearly avoided. Instead, she moves her hands toward a desk, and it explodes. She moves her hands towards the office chair. With another shift in her fingers, the chair is crumpled inward. Wanda keeps attacking it, trying to make it smaller and smaller and denser until her power becomes too great and it explodes into fine shedding. Wanda feels the pressure subside a little bit, but it’s not enough. She curls up on the floor and sobs. “Pietro, Pietro, Pietro…” she repeats. “I need you.” She pauses. “I should have joined you, I’m so sorry. You were right, you were right, I should have stayed with you.”

 

She reaches into the deep parts of her mind, looking for something to unleash that can put her out of her misery. In these desperate moments of anxiety and panic, Pietro would hold her ear to his chest and have her focus on his heartbeats. But Pietro was gone, he had no more heartbeats to give, so instead she focuses on her breaths. She tries to elongate her breaths, moving past hyperventilating into something more normal. Lungs filling up with air through her nose, lungs expanding as she exhaled through her mouth. She put all of her effort into her breathing while she lay curled up on the floor, her back to the door. Tears continued to roll down her face. She wished she were dead; this void where Pietro’s soul had once been next to her own was unbearable.

 

She did not know how much time had passed. It felt like hours, but her grasp on the concept of real time right now was poor at best. Her concentration on her breaths was interrupted by a knock on the door. “Miss Maximoff?” She recognized the gentle voice as the Vision’s. She did not respond, hoping he would understand the message and leave her alone.

 

He did not pick up on the social cue, and phased through the door. Wanda wanted so badly to retreat inside herself, to just curl up and die. Vision’s disruption of her concentration only opened the floodgates of her anger. Wanda did not turn to meet his gaze. In fact, she closed her eyes tighter, feeling an intense burning behind them that she could not control. “I just thought I’d—”

 

Something in her snaps. She bolts up and whips her head in his general direction. “Why didn’t you just leave me to die!?” she asks, tears down her cheeks, eyes glowing bright red. She shuts her eyes tight and slams her fist on the cold metal floor and red sparks scatter around the shaking room. She breathes heavily, gathering her strength again, and looks up. Vision is gone. A blanket—slightly singed but overall in good condition—is left on the floor.

 

She wipes her eyes with her wrists and stares at the blanket for a while before grabbing it. It’s a soft jersey fabric, and Wanda wraps herself in it. She leans against the wall and continues to cry.

 

* * *

 

Clint felt a small shake in the medical wing. He was leaning against a wall, trying to take up as little space as possible while a medic taped gauze over a bullet wound. He pushed his finger to his ear, to make com contact with the rest of the team. “Anyone else feel that?”

 

“Yeah, but I’m in the command center and there’s no structural damage or anything to report,” Cap replies. “Any idea what that might have been?”

 

“I’m guessing it was our new friend Maximoff,” Clint replied.

 

Natasha pipes in, “On what will probably be a completely related note, Fury and Hill want to see you. You about all done down there?”

 

Clint looked down at the medic, who was about to put on some reinforcing medical tape. Clint waved his hand at the medic, trying to shush him away. “Yeah I’m on my way up.” Clint pushed the rest of his shirt down and paced out of the medical bay. He turned to his left and at first bounded up the stairs two at a time, before he felt that was too taxing. Swallowing his pride, and feeling like an old man after a very long day, Clint slowly ascended the rest of the stairs.

 

Tony, Fury, Hill, Cap, and Nat were all waiting for him up in the command center. “We need to talk about the Maximoff girl,” said Fury.

 

“Right, uh…yeah,” Clint said, sort of unsure why he suddenly became her keeper, but it was a role he did not object to. He has assumed worse roles.

 

“We don’t know if she can be trusted,” Hill stated.

 

“Girl is crazy,” Stark said bluntly.

 

“I would not put it in those terms, but she seems pretty unbalanced,” said Cap.

 

“Do we plan to turn her over to somewhere? NATO? Interpol? US government? Whoever replaced SHIELD in terms of government authority to lock up baddies?” asked Stark.

 

“We’ve been exploring options,” Hill said vaguely.

 

“Guys, we can’t hand her over. She’s one of us now,” Clint said. He was met with raised eyebrows and silence. “First off, I don’t think any prison is gonna hold her. I’ve seen her in action, and believe me she could kick all of our asses. I’d say the Vision is the only one that stands a chance against her. I mean, she even took out Banner during a Code Green.” He pauses. “Look, she’s got nothing left. Her only lifeline out there was her brother, and he’s dead. She’s the kind of enhanced we absolutely want on her side. Plus, I don’t think she’s totally evil.” Stark folded his arms at this. “Hear me out. She was mainly after you—” he points to Stark. “—and that was to help out Sokovia. She was always fighting _for_ _people_. So why can’t we be fighting for the same people?”

 

Hill started, “It’s not that easy—”

 

Clint interrupted, “Do we really want her fighting on behalf of a bad guy out there when she can take most of us out?” Cap’s mouth curled up in agreement. “Plus, don’t we believe in second chances around here?”

 

There was a long pause.

 

“I see your point,” Cap said, “and I agree. We should give Wanda Maximoff a chance to join us. She could be a very powerful ally.”

 

“Well, Cap called it, and he’s the big cheese of the Avengers, so I’m good if he’s good,” said Stark. “But if she murders me in my sleep, totally putting that on you, Barton.”

 

“That’s a guilt trip I can easily handle,” Clint smoothly replied.

 

Suddenly Vision phased up through the floor, which gave nearly everyone a good jump-scare.

 

“That will take some time getting used to,” Cap muttered under his breath.

 

“My apologies, Mr. Rogers,” Vision said. “Mr. Barton, I checked in on Miss Maximoff very recently and she seems to be quite emotionally unstable.”

 

Clint pinched between his furrowed brows. “Okay, I’ll go see what’s up. Geez, you give someone one pep talk and team up with them one time, and all of the sudden you’re their legal guardian!” He headed towards the stairs, and then turned around to address the team one last time. “Nobody gives her any shit about her past actions with Ultron or Hydra, okay? Unless you want a hole in this boat. Her other half just died and her world just collapsed, give her a break.” Clint ran down some stairs, realized what information he was missing, and yelled, “What room is she in?”

 

“Room 027, sir.”

 

* * *

 

Wanda had never felt so small and alone in her entire life. Now, she had nobody, and she knew she was not helping herself by pushing the others away. But human interaction seemed so foreign without Pietro. She felt lost without him. _I can’t do this alone_ …

 

There was a knock at the door.

 

“Go away,” she said.

 

“No,” Barton replied.

 

“Please go away,” she repeated, trying to keep composure in her voice, which did not match what she was truly feeling.

 

“I can’t.”

 

“Why not?”

 

“Because there’s a little boy who is with his mother today, and I get to go home to my pregnant wife and two kids because of your brother’s sacrifice.”

 

Wanda paused. A red wisp opens the door.

 

Barton closed it behind him. He kneeled next to Wanda. “Your brother was a hero,” Barton quietly said. “Look, I gave him a lot of shit, but after seeing him out in the field… And now I owe him everything. So I’m paying him back by watching over you.”

 

“I don’t want to be the—” Wanda searched for the right word in English “—object of guilt for you.”

 

“You’re not, but I am going to always look out for you from now on,” Barton said. “Whether you like it or not. And I’m a good friend to have, I know people.”

 

“You know people?”

 

“Yeah, I mean, I’m no Captain America but I get free pizza for life at the best place in all of New York because I saved the owner’s life. I can tie like eighty different knots. Trust me, you wanna have me in your corner.”

 

And for the first time since her brother fell in battle, Wanda gave an inkling of a smile.

 

Barton sat next to Wanda against the wall. “Here, I wanna show you something,” he fiddled around in his pocket. He took something out and handed it to Wanda. It was a photograph, worn with creases from its life spent mostly in Barton’s pocket.

 

He pointed to the girl in the pigtails. “That’s my daughter Lilah. She loves to draw and she loves all animals. I mean like all of them. Dogs, cats, chickens, cows, frogs… It helps that all animals love her…” He shifted his finger to point at the boy. “That’s my son Cooper. He loves building things, but worse is that he loves taking things apart and then trying to put them back together. I’ve caught him trying to disassemble pretty much every appliance in the house…” He shakes his head and smiles. He drags his finger to the woman in the picture. “And that’s the love of my life and baby mama, Laura. We’re gonna have a boy in just a couple more months. And those kids and that beautiful woman in that photo still have a dad because of your brother.”

 

Wanda admitted, this all kind of felt like a cheap ploy. But, despite that, it worked. Knowing that a family would still have their father, like Wanda and Pietro did not, softened the blow of his loss by the smallest fraction. Tears once again spilled from Wanda. “Thank you.”

 

“Awww kid, c’mere,” Barton said. He took out a cloth from his pocket and began wiping her cheeks.

 

“You do not have to treat me like a child,” Wanda said, slightly annoyed.

 

“No I know, it’s just you look like hell, and I need your help for something so I’m tryin’ to make you look less like a mess.”

 

“What do you need my help for?” Wanda asked as Barton finished wiping the dirt, tears, and Pietro’s blood from her face.

 

“We have too many Sokovians and not enough translators in the medical bay,” Barton said. “We’ll be stopping over in Berlin to move the citizens off the helicarrier, but we won’t be there for a few hours and we’ll still have to stop there overnight, since Banner took Tony’s quinjet to sail off into the sunset. It would be great if you helped translate for our agents. Plus, it’ll earn you points with the Avengers, make them less likely to think you’ll blow a hole in this thing. C’mon, don’t you want a distraction?”

 

Wanda thought it over for a moment. This was a good idea, a distraction as Barton said. She nodded and said, “Yes, I will help out.” She stood up, and added, “Will you please tell Vision I am sorry? I got very angry at him—” she searches again for the correct word in English “—I lashed out, is what you would say?”

 

“Yeah, you lashed out at him. Happens to all of us to each other on the team. It’s just way deadlier when you do it. And why don’t you apologize to him yourself? You think you’re the only one I convinced to help out?”

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, still looking for a beta for this story. If you're interested, holla at me on tumblr ---> lizzah

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! To help this story be the best Wanda Maximoff deserves, I would be truly grateful for a beta reader! Find me on tumblr, @lizzah. Cheers!


End file.
